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<< The Wrong Argument FOR Gay Marriage | Home | Classic "No Win" Situations >>

The Right Argument Against Gay Marriage

By: The Baron

(Continuing on from Part 1 & Part 2)

Discussing the question of whether gay marriage should be legal involves asking the right question in the first place.

Many gay marriage supporters ask, “Why shouldn’t there be legalized gay marriage?”  That’s the wrong question:  there isn’t gay marriage now—never has been.  Throughout history, even those civilizations which were more accepting of homosexual relationships did not have a gay ‘marriage’ concept—certainly nothing approaching the equivalence of man/woman marriages in their society.  The idea of gay 'marriage' is entirely a modern concept.

The right question then, is “Why should there be legalized gay marriage?”  It is important to recognize that the burden of proof is entirely on the ‘pro-‘ side, which needs to provide a positive proof of why society needs to officially recognize same-sex relationships, since human civilization has arguably gotten along well enough without it for thousands of years. 

Many opposed to gay marriage like to paint an apocalyptic portrait of what societal de-evolution would occur if gay marriage were legalized:  Blood, Horror, Chaos, Death, Poverty, Suffering, Cats and Dogs Living Together, etc…

I’ve never really bought into the “Blood Horror Chaos”(TM) argument, which is usually WAY overstated by gay marriage opponents—legalized gay marriage will hardly cause the end of society as we know it, any more than marijuana legalization will. 

Ah…but the opposite is true also.  The LACK of gay marriage is not causing Blood, Horror, Chaos, Death, Suffering, and Poverty among the gay community, either, is it?  The members of the gay community of which I am aware would appreciate and benefit from legalized gay marriage, certainly, but for the most part are living productive, happy lives within long-term relationships without it.  The idea that the lack of gay marriage could be called a ‘crisis’ even from the gay community's perspective is arguably just as much an over-exaggeration, especially when compared to any number of real crises that are causing poverty and suffering in the US today. 

In any case, it is up to the pro-gay-marriage side to demonstrate why gay marriage should happen.  The anti-gay-marriage side does not actually have to produce any counter-argument at all, other than ‘it is not needed’, since we don’t have gay marriage now and the simplest course of action is to keep the status quo.

Some of the potential arguments that, if true, would support the idea that gay marriage should happen:
  1. It’s an equal rights issue—gay men and women are genuinely denied the same rights as non-gay men and women and society has an obligation to remedy that.
  2. Gay couples fulfill the exact same role in society that non-gay couples fill and possess the exact same characteristics, for which the latter already receives society’s due support and thus the former should, too. 
  3. It is genuinely impossible for gays to obtain the same benefits that non-gays can through opposite-sex relationships, therefore same-sex relationships need to be supported by the state.
Let’s look at each of these individually:

Equal rights:

The ‘equal rights’ argument has always been a mystery to me.  What right is it, exactly, that I have that a gay man does not?  If I out myself as gay tomorrow, how do my rights in society change?  Do they? (These questions have obvious answers if you substituted ‘black’ instead of ‘gay’ in the time before the civil rights era…)  For all the press the ‘equal rights’ issue gets, it seems awfully hard to pin down for even gay marriage supporters what right it actually is that disappears once someone admits to having same-sex attraction.

Modern US society has declared that American adults have the right to marry one member of the opposite sex who’s over 18 (16 in some areas), not a direct blood relative, and not currently married to someone else.  The law does not ask whether one has same-sex attraction or not when applying the law—everyone has exactly the same right, regardless.  If so, what basis does the ‘equal rights’ argument have?

Gay marriage is not an equal rights issue.  Saying gays have fewer rights than non-gays is like saying marijuana being illegal is an ‘equal rights' issue because people who like smoking tobacco can do so legally, but people who like smoking marijuana can’t.  Smoking tobacco is legal for everyone, and smoking marijuana is illegal for everyone across the board—it doesn’t make a difference if you happen to only prefer one or the other.  One can still argue that marijuana should be legal, of course (or tobacco shouldn’t be), but not on an ‘equal rights’ basis, without demonstrating how the law actually treats people with different smoking preferences differently.

(As another example, society says that I have the right to purchase and drink alcohol, since I am over 21.  As it happens, I don’t drink, so that ‘right’ is fairly meaningless.  That’s okay--that’s my choice.  But my choosing not to drink does not mean my right to drink doesn’t exist.  And it hardly means society has the obligation, say, to allow me (and only me) to smoke marijuana legally, simply because I don’t particularly care for utilizing my right to drink alcohol or tobacco.)

What’s funny about the recent California Supreme Court decision, though, is that they could not actually come up with a right that a person with same-sex attraction no longer has, either.  Their decision is entirely based on the idea that ‘couples’ have rights, and that California law treats 'gay couples’ fundamentally differently than opposite sex ‘couples’, and that in and of itself is an “equal rights violation”.

Problem: “Couples” don’t have rights.  “Couples” don’t actually exist—a couple is just an abstract pairing of two individuals, who each have individual rights.  And as we’ve seen, each individual has the same rights under even California law when it comes to marriage, regardless of how those individuals are arbitrarily grouped into different pairs.  Like “The Family”, a “couple” is an abstract concept that has no concrete definition, and thus is a suspect foundation for a true equal rights argument.

(Just to show how arbitrary the definition is, which of the following counts as a 'couple':
  1. A man and a woman in a romantic relationship
  2. A man and another man in a romantic relationship
  3. A man and a woman in a romantic relationship, where the man is already married to a different woman.
  4. A man and a woman in a romantic relationship who have the same father and mother.
  5. A man and another man who are college roommates and have no romantic relationship but are really good friends.
If it's improper to treat #2 differently than #1, why isn't it improper to treat #3, #4, and #5 differently than #1?  They are all 'couples' in the same abstract sense.  The court is arbitrarily defining couples that need protection and those that do not out of the air, not according to consistent legal principles...)

An equal rights issue should be clear and distinct, like someone not having the right to vote if they are black (but who would be able to if they were white).  An equal rights argument of the form that “if you define this arbitrary term to mean this, and this abstract concept to mean that, and hold up a mirror at just the right angle to the light, then you can see the right that's being violated…” suggests that it's on fundamentally shaky ground to begin with.

The purpose of secular benefits

Question: why did opposite-sex married couples start receiving secular benefits from the state, such as tax breaks, alimony, and insurance considerations?  “Marriage” is not a secular institution, remember—it is a secular acknowledgment of a religious institution.  Why, then, would secular society feel the need to ‘acknowledge’ marriages at all?

Because, traditionally, families consisted of a husband who worked outside the home and a wife who stayed home to raise children.   As more and more financial benefits became tied to employment—and thus primarily to the husband--the concern became how to protect the wife and children, who inherently had no direct access to them.  The majority of secular marriage benefits created by the state were for this purpose—protection for the non-working members of the family who had some financial recourse if, say, the husband died (or left) taking the family income and benefits with him.

In the 21st century, the ‘traditional’ definition of family doesn’t apply nearly as much as it used to.  The pro-gay-marriage side, in fact, regularly points out this general trend, as a reason why society should be accepting of ‘non-traditional’ same-sex marriages. 

But, why should society be compelled to make sure ‘non-traditional’ couples received the same protections…if they’re 'non-traditional', and the original reasons for providing those protections in the first place no longer apply.

Once again, gays can’t have it both ways:  they can’t say the traditional family pattern doesn’t apply anymore, therefore same-sex couples should be accepted…but then say society has an obligation to provide those benefits to them which were entirely dependent on that traditional definition of family to begin with.  If gay families are far less likely to meet the ‘traditional’ definition of family than even the modern 21st century yuppie couple—one parent working, and one parent being the ‘housewife’ with the kids—what’s society’s motivation for extending unneeded benefits to even more families nation-wide?

(As it is, there seems to be a far stronger argument for society to get out of the ‘marriage recognition’ business altogether--or at least start cutting back on ‘traditional’ marriage benefits to working couples without children—than to extend benefits even further to a demographic that can’t demonstrate it has the same needs that the original couples did when the benefits were extended in the first place…)

It is impossible for gays to obtain the benefits of marriage without legalized same-sex marriage.

Here we have the issue that strikes hardest at the heart of the gay marriage debate.  Are gays blocked from obtaining the blessings of marriage that non-gays can obtain through opposite-sex marriage?

We've seen that society does not block people with same-sex attraction from entering into opposite-sex marriages, as they have the same right as everyone else has to do so.  The argument, then. that gays are incapable of obtaining the benefits of marriage must lie in a more abstract form--that gays *can* marry (as in 'obtain a marriage license'), but are incapable of creating a 'successful' opposite-sex marriage.  How do we define a 'successful' marriage?  What's the purpose and benefit of marriage in the first place?

Before continuing, we must note that there is an inherent, philosophical difference between something that is "impossible" and something that is merely "difficult".  Colloquially, something that is described as ‘impossible’ (such as buying alcohol in Utah) does not usually mean literally "not possible", but rather "less convenient than I would prefer".

“Impossible” is an absolute word, along with the lines of  ‘always’, ‘never’ and ‘everyone’.  Most debaters wisely tend to avoid absolute words, simply because they can be ruined so easily by any one counter-example.

The problem here is that arguing for gay marriage relies on making the case for ‘impossible’--that it is literally impossible for gays to obtain the benefits of marriage under current policy--rather than just ‘difficult’.  As with most statements that use the word 'impossible', I don't think it can be done.

Is it literally impossible for gays to receive the same benefits of marriage, or just ‘difficult’?  If the former, we have a much stronger case that society should recognize and support same-sex marriages; if the latter, not so much.  Society does not have an inherent need to provide "convenience" for everyone.

As an example, Kaimi in his recent post at BCC on the California decision shares:  “One friend of mine is in a long-term, registered, same-sex relationship. She carries a packet with her, everywhere she goes. It’s thick and unwieldy, and it cost her thousands of dollars. It contains wills, and life insurance, and medical permission forms — everything that I take for granted. If I’m in a car accident, I’m sure that my wife will be able to visit me in the hospital. My gay friend has no such guarantee — and so she carries a book-sized packet of documents around, everywhere she goes.”

This experience certainly sounds inconvenient and unpleasant…but also undercuts the argument that gay marriage is strictly necessary in order to allow gay people to accomplish many of the things that opposite-sex marriages have taken care of automatically.  As this story shows, many of the legal arrangements that happen automatically with a marriage license need more effort to obtain…but are still possible, and many people do it.  No one questions that for this person and others like her, gay marriage would be an ‘it would be wonderful for me, if…” issue if they did not have to go to so much trouble.

“Convenience” isn’t good enough, though.  Something being ‘difficult’ is not the same as something being ‘impossible’.  If gays *can* have the same legal arrangements and benefits through alternate means as if through marriage--and wouldn't you think the smart lawyers are already advertising a 'marriage-equivalence' legal package for a discounted rate to just this market--why do we specifically need legalized gay marriage, then?

(I have no moral objection to a gay person wanting their same-sex partner to be their life-insurance beneficiary, or have their power-of-attorney in emergencies, or be able to visit them in the hospital.  But those concerns are not significant enough--nor 'impossible' enough--to justify massive changes to marriage policy.  Changing marriage for the purpose of allowing more hospital access for gay partners would be like swatting a fly with a bulldozer.  Why not push for laws that...allow gays to visit loved ones in the hospital more readily?  Does the gay community realize that there are a LOT of people who would be willing to support many laws that would make the lives of gay people easier, if only the word 'marriage' wasn't attached to it?)

Aside from the secular and legal benefits, lies the more abstract benefits of marriage--and what we mean when we talk about a 'successful' marriage.

Prof. Dale Carpenter, whose well-written series in support of gay marriage was linked to in my first article last week, says that the ~9 million gays in the US are currently left “with no reasonable prospect of ever marrying.”  (Note the addition of the qualifying word: ‘reasonable’.  What’s a ‘reasonable’ prospect of marrying, or succeeding in marriage?)

Later in the series, he states—as a counter-argument to the “marriage is about procreation” issue:

Even couples who have children do not view their marriage as being only or even primarily about procreation. Their marriages are about children, yes, but also love, commitment, and caretaking. For those couples who can’t or won’t have children, their marriages are obviously also not justified by procreation....It’s worth asking why we should adopt a view of marriage that reduces its public essence to one single purpose if neither the legal nor the cultural/social understanding of marriage supports the view that it’s only about that one purpose.

What is the purpose of marriage, though?  That paragraph mentions three things, which are frequently echoed from gay couples as the reason they want to be married:  love, commitment, and caretaking.  “Procreation” is not mentioned, nor is it a fundamental requirement for any of those three things to occur.

What else isn’t mentioned, though?  Let’s read that paragraph again, but substitute in another word for ‘procreation’ and adjust the statement accordingly:

Even couples who have regular physical intimacy do not view their marriage as being only or even primarily about sex. Their marriages include sex, yes, but also love, commitment, and caretaking. For those couples who can’t or don’t have sexual intercourse, their marriages are obviously also not justified by sex....It’s worth asking why we should adopt a view of marriage that reduces its public essence to one single purpose if neither the legal nor the cultural/social understanding of marriage supports the view that it’s only about that one purpose.

The argument for gay marriage implies that gays cannot obtain ‘love’, ‘commitment’, and ‘caretaking’ within an opposite-sex marriage.  Why is that?  Which of those three things is a gay man incapable of providing to a woman, and her to him?  If the primary purposes and benefits of marriage can still be obtained in an opposite-sex marriage, regardless of the partners' sexual orientation and/or lack of sex drive, why, again, is gay marriage needed?

Earlier we recognized that a simple example of a man and woman in their 70’s wanting to get married served as a counter-example to the ‘marriage is for procreation’ argument.  Let’s use that same couple as an example, again: we can suppose their marriage is not about procreation, but is it about sex, either?  Their age doesn't mean there will automatically be NO sex--believe it or not, I don’t go around quizzing older couples about their sex lives--but if it happened that sex was not a big part of their relationship, does that invalidate their marriage?  Absolutely not...

Likely, if you asked either of them why they wanted to get married, they might answer those same things: love, commitment, and caretaking.  Sex may be a nice benefit, but sex--like procreation--isn’t a requirement for any of those other three things to occur.  If we put sex to one side, then the question remains:  what benefit of marriage are gays incapable of obtaining through current marriage opportunities?  What makes it 'impossible' for a gay man to be a good husband to a woman, according to our already defined marriage criteria?

Remember, we’re not talking about ‘difficulty’—no one denies being married to someone with same-sex attraction can be very difficult.  The question is whether being gay makes one fundamentally incapable of being a loving, supportive, and faithful husband to a woman.  I don't think this case can be made—and if it can't, then why is gay marriage necessary?  The primary benefits of marriage are already available to everyone.

(The pro-gay-marriage side likes to point out that marriages with a partner with same-sex attraction have a high failure rate...without mentioning that the reason for that high failure rate is that most of those spouses with SSA end up leaving their opposite sex partner for a same-sex one.  Whose fault is that 'failure', then?  "Fidelity" is not conditional.  If we're not supposed to excuse a 40-something man saying to his 40-something wife, "You know, you're just not as good-looking as you used to be, and I'm not really attracted to you anymore.  I'm leaving you for a younger woman...", why are we excusing someone who leaves his wife for another man, even for reasons of greater physical attraction?  You are either faithful, or you're not.  If 'lack of physical attraction' is an acceptable excuse for breaking up a relationship, what's going to keep same-sex couples together when one of them becomes less physically attractive over time?  Would the gay community also consider that an acceptable excuse to break up same-sex relationships, and find someone better looking?  If so, why, then, support binding that couple within a legal marriage which makes that break-up more difficult?  And if not, what's keeping that person with same-sex attraction from showing the same love, support and fidelity to an opposite-sex spouse?)

In the end, the best argument against gay marriage from a secular perspective really is simply that it is not necessary.  There’s no equal rights issue.  Not enough same-sex couples have a family arrangement that fits the pattern for societal protection according to the traditional justification.  And gays have the opportunity to create a marriage with love, commitment and caretaking (and often children, too) with an opposite sex spouse along with everyone else.  (Or, if they don't want to, they already have complete freedom to create their own relationship with a same-sex partner full of love, commitment, and caretaking, just without the word ‘marriage’ attached…)

Again, legalized gay marriage (if it happens on a large scale) will not be the end of the world.  Nevertheless, there are very simple reasons why both society and any given individual does not need to accept it, without feeling guilty.   Not supporting legalized gay marriage is a legitimate social position to take, without automatically labeling one as a 'bigot'.  If it holds up in California, or happens elsewhere around the country, so be it.  But in my mind, the case that gay marriage is necessary for a successful and just society, rather than a 'nicety for a small demographic'' has not been made...

Print | posted on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 7:48 AM | Filed Under [ The Baron General Politics Family ]

Comments:

#1: Eric Nielson

Not necessary. That's all we got? I thought there would be more. That doesn't seem like very much to me. Is that a more powerful reason than I am giving it credit?
5/28/2008 5:04 AM

#2: The Baron

Well, remember...this series was focused on why secular society shouldn't accept gay marriage. If we were to include religious reasons, there are a number of others we could add (which I may discuss later in the week), but as mentioned in the first article, this isn't a debate about whether the Church should accept gay marriages, but whether secular society should. That means we need to look at it from a secular perspective only, without getting into, for example, eternal families. And it's true that many of the arguments put forth by gay marriage opponents about the consequences of gay marriage on secular society (the Blood Horror Chaos idea) are overstated at best.

Sorry if you're underwhelmed (and you're welcome to bring up any major issue you can think of that I forgot...) but that's partially the point. The benefits of gay marriage to society are overexaggerated by supporters, the disastrous consequences of gay marriage to society by opponents are also, in my opinion, overexaggerated. While I still believe gay marriage should not be supported for the reasons given, it may be true that its legality is not nearly as big a deal as both supporters and opponents make it sound. Just my opinion...
5/28/2008 6:49 AM

#3: Nick Literski

As this story shows, many of the legal arrangements that happen automatically with a marriage license need more effort to obtain…but are still possible, and many people do it.

The Government Accounting Office, in responding to the request of Senator Bill Frist, compiled a list of the rights, benefits and privileges afforded to married couples under federal law. As of their 2003 update, the GAO identified 1,138 such provisions. http://www.buddybuddy.com/gao-2003.pdf That list, of course, does not include the various state laws which provide additional rights, benefits and privileges for married couples. Just as an example, Washington State has identfied over 400 such provisions. Kaimi's illustration only reflects one couple's attempt to provide a few select rights, but you present it as if they've managed to arrange the "full legal package" of marriage, lacking only the title. I hope that you are simply misinformed, and not intentionally misrepresenting the case.

You seem to suggest that you're perfectly fine with same-sex couples having all the legal rights of opposite-sex married couples, so long as they have to go through enormous amounts of paperwork and legal fees to arrange even a partial approximation. Of course, if you have any kind of human sense of fairness, you're snickering up your sleeve, fully aware of the cynicism inherent in your proposition.

If gays *can* have the same legal arrangements and benefits through alternate means as if through marriage--and wouldn't you think the smart lawyers are already advertising a 'marriage-equivalence' legal package for a discounted rate to just this market--why do we specifically need legalized gay marriage, then?

That's just it. You're not seeing such advertising, because there is no such thing. Even to obtain a partial set of "like marriage" rights, a same-sex couple ends up spending many thousands of dollars in legal fees (some experts suggest over $50,000.00), etc. Meanwhile, an opposite-sex couple who met an hour ago in Las Vegas can obtain the full package after paying $50.00 for a marriage license.

The more I think about it, the more bizarre this "needs based" analysis of your becomes. Apparently the United States never should have banned slavery, since after all, it wasn't impossible for African slaves to escape their "owner's" enslavement. It just was "difficult," in the sense of risking life and limb, etc. Likewise, women in the United States never should have been allowed to vote, since it wasn't "impossible" for them to influence who was elected to office. It was just "difficult" for them to convince some man to vote the way they wanted them to.

In fact, the entire LDS "plan of salvation" should be immediately repealed. After all, it's not impossible for someone to live a morally perfect life, if Jesus managed to do it. Therefore, it's not impossible for any person to live without sin and then live forever in the presence of deity. It's just really, really difficult for any of them to do so. Thus, as you have so eloquently demonstrated, a messianic atonement simply is not necessary. Every person has an opportunity to be sinless and receive all the benefits of salvation!

"Let them eat cake!"
5/28/2008 9:09 AM

#4: Eric Nielson

Yeah, Baron. I think the 'underwhelming' aspect may well be what you are getting at here.

It makes me want to go back and review the wrong arguments again. I don't think the 'not necessary' angle will be enough.
5/28/2008 9:52 AM

#5: Nemesis

Yeah, I have a hard time with the "all of that stuff isn't impossible", so therefore it's really not necessary to give the same rights to gays as straight people have...

They're either entitled to those same rights (no matter why us straight people got them) or no one is entitled to those rights. Civil rights are not meant to apply to some people over all others, or some people over some others...they are meant to apply to all citizens.

Churches have different dispensations due to our constitutional right of religious freedom. They should be allowed to discriminate all they want...but the government should not be allowed to discriminate in granting civil rights.

However, more than anything I want to commend you for taking on this subject, and it really appears that you are trying to be fair minded. I'm willing to agree to disagree any time someone gives it their best effort.
5/28/2008 6:23 PM

#6: Kaimi

Can I also say kudos for a thoughtful and interesting series. I disagree with some of your analysis, but your posts have been fair and even-handed, a rare enough attribute given the topic.

I am wondering, though: You've now set out three squares of a four-square grid. Is there going to be a Part IV? That is, are there right arguments for gay marriage?
5/29/2008 1:51 AM

#7: Nemesis

Ooh, excellent point, Kaimi. Seems there is an angle that is missing.
5/29/2008 7:23 AM

#8: The Baron

Thanks for the compliment--I recognize the 'difficult but not impossible' statement is the most disconcerting, especially for those in those difficult circumstances. However, a comparison to slavery is a little over the top: slavery IS an issue that involves poverty, suffering, and death. Gay marriage fundamentally is not. If the worst situation we can come up with is how much money it costs to arrange legal matters between gay partners, doesn't that inherently show we're not talking about a capital-S Serious issue? Compared to matters of health care reform, or education?

Since I don't personally support gay marriage (albeit not as passionately as others) I don't know if I'm suitable to try to produce 'good' reasons for gay marriage, not without contradicting everything from this article, anyway. I think the best reason for gay marriage is simply that gays will benefit from it, and if there are enough votes for it, then so be it--the arguments that it is not necessary or not justified will be moot, and as I said, the world will not end if it does.

Nemesis, you've mentioned 'civil rights' a number of times, without explaining what you think the 'civil rights' issue actually is. That's one of the key questions from this post: are you looking at it from an individual perspective, or a 'couple' perspective? Are polygamous couples lacking the same 'civil rights' as other couples, in your view? What is the 'civil right' that gays do not have?

Most people, myself included, support equal rights for all--but it needs to be a genuine civil right, not an imaginary one that disappears depending on how you define abstract concepts like 'a couple'. Surely, you see the difference between saying, "I don't want gays to have equal rights", and "I don't see how gays *don't* have equal rights, already."
5/29/2008 7:28 AM

#9: Nemesis

Oh, wow. See, I was looking at the "right" to get married as a government right. The government controls/issues the licensing, (and the government controls/issues the divorces, too). The whole issue is legally bound up due to all the rights and responsibilities the government assigns to a married couple.

The government gives benefits to those who are married. The number of concrete benefits are in the hundreds (I think someone quoted a number here or on another forum recently) that are guaranteed to married couples.

If marriage is controlled by the government, and assigned value by the government, it ought to be a right that any couple of age could engage in. Since that right is denied to those who would marry an adult of the same gender, it's discriminatory against someone who has committed no crime.

If marriage were a religious function, and churches controlled it, it wouldn't be a civil right. But until/unless the government gets out of the marriage business, it should be available to all adults.

The government used to ban interracial marriage, until we as a country overcame that prejudice. The very words used to strike that law were incredibly prescient when looking at the ban on gay marriage today.

And to go one step further, yes, I believe that polygamous couples should have civil rights to marry, also. I'm not sure how to go about addressing their legal rights and responsibilities, just yet, because I haven't really dug deep into all the ramifications. And even one step beyond that, relatives such as parent and adult child, and adult sister and adult brother. To tell you the truth, those concepts gross me out badly, giving me the same "ick factor" that most straight men have when thinking of homosexual acts in general.

So I have and acknowledge my prejudices, but I also recognize that they are just that...my prejudices. Return the marriage function solely to the churches, or offer it to all consenting adults and figure out how to make that work in our society.
5/30/2008 10:40 PM

#10: austin s

Baron, I'd also like to thank you because you really have written a series of very well-thought out and reasonable posts about this issue. However, like some others here I am not persuaded by your arguments.

A fundamental right that gays don't have that straights do? How about the right to enter into a committed, legal relationship with someone you love and receive the hundreds of benefits that the government gives to that, is (or should be) a civil right. For everyone. That is the right that gays don't have. We just don't really think about it as heterosexuals because for us (who are the majority) the group "people I want to marry" is a strict subset of the group "people of the opposite sex," whereas for gay people they are completely distinct. Just because we haven't ever recognized that right for everyone isn't a good argument that we shouldn't now. America didn't let women vote for a long time, but it was right to let them.

Nemesis mentioned interracial marriage in his comment #9. That practice seems to me to be pretty analogous to what we have now in not allowing same-sex marriages. Your arguments would hold up very well to defend traditional marriage as only between two white people or only between two black people, but not between a black and a white person. After all, a white man and a black woman could live together and possibly receive the same benefits that gay couples can now, albeit with similar "difficulties" to what gay couples seeking those rights now face. And really, in the history of American (maybe all of Western?) law, marriage had only been between two white people or two black people. Why change from the status quo? With the reasons you outlined here, do you think America was right to change the law to make marriage between a black and a white person legal?

Again, thanks, I really do appreciate your thoughtful tone and your respect for gay people as children of God, not degenerate and depraved sinners who should be burned at the stake. As you said, those sorts of over-the-top rhetoric are thrown about way too much by the anti-gay marriage side, and of course the pro- side isn't completely free in these regards either. I appreciate this opportunity to hear an informed and reasonable argument against gay marriage and discuss it.
5/31/2008 3:24 PM

#11: Stas

Hello Baron! While I completelly and utterly disagree with you (for the same reasons given in comments #10. #9, #5, #3) I applaud you on a most excellently well-written opinion piece. Did it resort to hate speech? no! did it resort to religion? no! did it resort to prejudice?...slightly... But, over all, this was probably the best argument i could find against gay marriage. And believe me, i've been looking and looking. I have an assignment for a university course to critique two opinion pieces of opposing views on a topic, and i chose gay marriage.
I was getting VERY worried about having to choose a different topic when i could not find arguments against gay marriage. Now that i've found this one, i have opposing opinion pieces to compare and critique. So thanks for that :-)
but as i said... i still completely disagree with you. You say that gays have the same right to marry as do straights - false. yes, gay people can marry people of the opposite sex - as in they have the ABILITY to do so - but this just displays an ignorance of what it is like to actually BE gay. Because, gays don't want to marry people of the opposite sex. They may be able to care for and comfort and love people of the opposite sex - but not 'romantic' love, not the concept of being "in love". To be gay is to be attracted to people of the same sex and fall "in love" with the same sex. Imagine if things were reversed and gay marriage was the norm. yes, straight people COULD marry people of the same sex, yes, they could care for them and love them without having sex - but would they be "in love" with them? no! it would be like the love between friends/parents/children/siblings etc... IT MAY AS WELL BE AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE for all the attraction that exists in these relationships where people don't have compatible sexual orientations!!!
6/1/2008 7:08 AM

#12: Mr Equality

"The primary benefits of marriage are already available to everyone"... Of course not! Unless you expect them to go against their natures and marry someone they're not in love with - and why should they be put in that position? You say that opposite sex marriages involving a SSA person have a high failure rate - and that supporters of gay marriage try to hush the fact that these SSA people end up leaving their opposite sex partner for a same sex partner. I hardly find this astonishing, and i don't see why it would be hushed up. I would have thought this outcome would be a quite obviously predictable one - after all, they're GAY! They're not physically OR emotionally attracted in the SAME way that they would be to someone of the same sex! The failure of such a marriage would be no one's fault - it is because their sexual orientations are incompatible. This isn't just about who they have sex with, it is who they fall in love with. Just as you can't imagine loving someone of the same sex in the same way you can imagine loving someone of the opposite sex, so too can't gays imagine the opposite. You say that physical attractiveness is no good reason to be unfaithful in an opposite sex marriage - and you are completely right - but this doesn't hold when you are talking about a SSA person marrying an opposite sex person because a SSA person wouldn't find an opposite sex partner physically or emotionally attractive (in a romantic sense) regardless of their age; they are not interested in that sex at all in the first place. SSA people aren't just interested in the physical attractiveness, but i mentioned it because you were talking about how a couples' ageing and loss of physical attractiveness is no good reason for one to be unfaithful. I 'd agree with your argument if you said that it would be wrong for there to be infidelity amongst same sex attracted persons in a relationship on the basis of physical attractiveness because they should love each other for more than the physical part of their relationship.
6/1/2008 8:16 AM

#13: Stas

I was thinking: The law is meant to look after its citizens. I don't see how the reasons you gave support a case for not allowing gay people the opportunity to marry the people they love. I also don't see why you think there is no problem in something being "difficult". Ok, so there may be some ways around a problem, but if the law can be changed to make it easier - why is that so wrong? Why leave a law in place that disadvantages a community that it is supposed to represent? Lawmaking bodies are supposed to represent all people, gay or straight. The current laws in most parts of the world only grant gay people the ability to marry people that they don't want to marry.
6/2/2008 12:52 AM

#14: erin

I didn't read all your comments so maybe this has been addressed but I'm not sure about the validity of the logic in your "equal rights" part of the argument.

The law might be the same for everyone- we can all marry someone of the opposite sex and none of us (at least, until fairly recently) can marry someone of the same sex.

But that's not the ISSUE that is being argued- the issue is that the law allows some people to marry whom they choose and the law does not allow others to marry whom they choose. (I agree with your position. Just not the logic here.)

Couldn't you also make the civil rights argument- the law allows white people to go where they are legally allowed to go and the law allows black people to go where they are legally allowed to go? They both have the same equal right- to go where they are legally allowed to go. But that's not the ISSUE. The issue is that both groups are not equally free to do as they CHOOSE.

The semantics of your argument might be correct, but the meaning of it doesn't really address the argument being made.
6/10/2008 12:59 AM

#15: erin

The deeper questions about rights that are under the surface of many of these arguments are:

What is the value of individual desire in the context of societal desire? Should one trump the other?

Which specific freedoms granted to individuals are good for the group and which specific freedoms granted are harmful to the group?

What are the cases where the individual's freedom to choose is in and of itself the best thing for society (no matter what the choice is)?

(For example, a motorcyclist deciding not to wear a helmet is obviously not the best thing for society. Just look at the stats for mortality rates of those who crash with helmets vs. those without helmets. This negatively impacts society financially and emotionally. How many tax dollars go to cover treatment not covered by insurance for those who end up in critical condition due to not wearing a helmet? How much time and energy is tied up in hospitals that could be channeled other directions? How many families are devastated unnecessarily? How much more trauma is caused to everyone involved in the accident when a head is split open in front of them and they see someone die? How many children grow up without a parent and spouses have to shoulder the economic and emotional burden of raising a family alone?

However, in some states, the people value the individual's legal freedom to choose whether or not they put on a helmet more than what it costs them by allowing it. They are willing to pay the price for what happens when people choose not to wear helmets in order to protect a society in which people are free to decide for themselves if they want to wear one or not. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying- that's what they value.)

It's not simply a matter of us all having "equal rights." Of course, that sounds noble and just. And anyone who argues against this can easily sound like a big jerk who just wants his cake and doesn't want anyone else to have any. And the word Freedom has such an emotional affect on us- that anyone who thinks freedoms should be measured and in some cases denied can easily sound like a Nazi tyrant who just wants to control the masses and turn everyone into robots.

But these are complicated issues. There are real ramifications for good and for harm for all the laws we currently have that govern and allow the choices we make. We have to look at the big picture. We have to look at the small picture. We have to try to step out of our emotional positions to look objectively at what is really at stake with each issue. This involves being uncomfortable sometimes and considering things that we almost instinctively or habitually or traditionally push away.

This is true for all of us- even Mormons! Some might be against gay marriage because they just feel- Those are bad people and we can't let them get what they want. Or we are better than they are and need to assert this by fighting any political move they make. Or this is my chance to publicly announce my righteousness and Down, Down with those horrible people.

I may agree with their vote- but I don't believe the energy they put into the world is going to bring about any good. I don't believe their speeches or articles will build the Kingdom of God or persuade anyone to righteousness.

And some might even be confused and just know that they know we have a living prophet and they will follow him. That's much better than being motivated by pride or hatred. But not quite as good as having their own testimony of the issue in addition to their testimony of the Gospel. They are on the right path and moving in the right direction, at least.

Anyway- it's late and I'm rambling. Just my thoughts on the matter.
6/10/2008 1:45 AM

#16: The Lauderdale

Re: "Equal Rights" argument -

Blacks and whites once both enjoyed equal marriage rights: the right to marry someone else of the same race.

"Prior to Loving v. Virginia there were several cases on the subject of race mixing cases. In Pace v. Alabama (1883) the Supreme Court ruled that the conviction of an Alabama couple for interracial sex, affirmed on appeal by the Alabama Supreme Court, did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Interracial extramarital sex was deemed a felony, whereas extramarital sex ("adultery or fornication") was only a misdemeanor. On appeal, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the criminalization of interracial sex was not a violation of the equal protection clause because whites and non-whites were punished in equal measure for the offense of engaging in interracial sex."

Building on this point, while I know you don't use the phrase "special rights" anywhere in this particular article, many opponents of same-sex marriage say that gays are seeking special rights when they seek the right to marry...but legalizing same-sex marriage isn't granting gay people special rights, since *everyone* would then have the right to marry someone of the same gender.
6/19/2008 3:32 PM

#17: Jay Zell

"It is important to recognize that the burden of proof is entirely on the ‘pro-‘ side."

Poor premise in a free country. A reason is required to make something ILLEGAL, not make it legal. For example, I don't need to prove the merits of being able to send an email in order for sending emails to be legal. After all, society has gotten along just fine without emails for centuries, just like homosexual marriage. Activities are assumed to be legal unless they present a danger to society which makes them illegal. The fact that people have been prejudiced against homosexuals for a very long time is not sufficient warrant to continue such prejudice.

Also, now that we have a religious person admitting that the burden of proof is entirely on the pro- side, perhaps a debate about the existence of God should be next on the agenda. Interesting that no Mormon or Christian of any kind has ever gone out of their way to claim the burden of proof in that debate. "YOU CAN"T PROVE GOD DOESN"T EXIST!" they cry as if that is some kind of logical argument. I can't prove leprechauns don't exist either, but I'm not holding out hope.
6/22/2008 11:48 PM

#18: Thomas J. Marriot, Jr.

How ridiculous for the "administrator" of this blog to not understand there is no argument for gay rights, marriage, or anything at all to do with alternative lifestyles. They are wrong, misguided, and out of touch with everything pertaining to the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

Why you would open this for discussion on a supposedly "Mormon" blog boggles the mind and shows your true agenda--anti-Mormon doctrine.
9/29/2008 2:54 AM

#19: Mark

Wow.....what an idiot you are. American right? Get your head out of the sand!! Pathetic!!!!!!!!!!
11/6/2008 5:28 PM

#20: Herbert March

Look at how we look back at the Middle Ages. Or at slavery and segregation. In the long run, freedom wins.

No one who is gay chooses to be gay. What can anybody gain from being gay? Being treated like a second class citizen. Why would anybody want to be gay? To voluntarily be subjected to stereotypes.

No, a certain percentage of people are gay. Why? We don't know. That has always been the case. That's just the way it is. And there is nothing wrong with it.

What would Jesus do? Would he exclude gays? Certainly not.

In a few years we will look back at the time during which gays were arbitrarily denied citizen rights as ridiculous dark times like the times of witch hunts and slave farms.
11/7/2008 7:07 PM

#21: Joel Dignam

I'm glad that this argument, although wholly disagreeable, is at least an attempt at intelligent debate. That being the case, I'd like to debate it intelligently.

Fundamentally, you say that it is up to gay people to make a positive case for gay-marriage, not up to its opponents to make a case against it. If it is that simple, you should be willing to accept the 'pro' arguments once made; it seems unfair to demand arguments then refuse to acknowledge them. No doubt the people who aren't married, who want to be, feel a strong desire to be married, and your inability to empathises does not invalidate that desire.

Your most egregious point is that about the lack of gay marriage not being a civil rights issue. You ignore the essence of this point and pose fallacious analogies. The point you fail to comprehend is that for a man to love a woman or another man is essentially arbitary, and it's not as if one choice over the other has intrinsic benefits or advantages. That being the case, it is a violation of a person's rights to legally forbid them from pursuing an equivalent aim. For heterosexual people, the right to marry a person of the opposite gender is the right to marry a person that they love. Homosexual people are denied the right to enshrine their loving relationships in marriage and this is discrimination.
11/11/2008 2:05 AM

#22: Callie

Ya. ah wtfe. there is absoluatly nothing wrong with gays getting married. Its truelly not much different than oppisite sex getting married. So all of you people that are against gay marriage or anyone that says shit to anyone thats gay needs to back the fuck off and leave them alone and just let them be happy and get married.
11/19/2008 8:46 AM

#23: Callie

Me again. Gay people just want to be happy and there is nothing wrong with that. Whats wrong with you people??? There should be a law that lets gays get married.

Just let them be. Imagine how you would feel if only gays were allowed to get married and members from the opposite sex weren't allowed to. Image that. You would all be pissed and upset and yiou would try to legalize being able to get married. It's the exact same thing for gays. Thats how they feel. Just leave them alone and let them get married, Be able to adopt kids.

LET THEM BE HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11/19/2008 8:52 AM

#24: The Baron

Your most egregious point is that about the lack of gay marriage not being a civil rights issue. You ignore the essence of this point and pose fallacious analogies. The point you fail to comprehend is that for a man to love a woman or another man is essentially arbitary, and it's not as if one choice over the other has intrinsic benefits or advantages.


I think your defintion of 'civil right' is different than the common understood definition. You seem to be saying, "a man should have the right to marry a man if he wants to" which is fine, but is just the same as saying, "a man should have the right to smoke marijuana legally if he wants to". That's a legitimate position to take...but has absolutely nothing to do with "equal rights", which is what "civil rights" is generally assumed to mean. Is marijuana legalization a civil rights issue? Should polygamy be legal? Why isn't "a man should have the right to marry two women if he wants to" just as pressing a 'civil rights' question? Why should some people be allowed to marry anyone they want, but others can't?

Also, the big elephant in the room that no one is discussing is that gays *do* have the right to form a legally recognized domestic partnership in California--that's been legal since 2005. So the usage of "civil rights" in regard to California gay couples is even more curious, given that their rights are the same now as they were two weeks ago.
11/19/2008 1:19 PM

#25: Doug

This is a fascinating series and discussion. Well-written, interesting, thoughtful, even if I don't agree with the conclusions (I'm a 30-year-old straight male who is for state recognition of gay marriage and then allow religions do with it what they will).

But in the end, there's one argument that I think you've forgotten: the pragmatic economic argument of time and money in fighting this fight, and it's geared around one idea, think of it what you will: it may take a while, but the fight to prevent gay marriage is a losing battle, and probably not worth the effort.

It's hard to imagine a world 50 years from now where gay couples are not given legal recognition of their marriage, (just as it's hard to imagine a world 50 years ago when black people could not vote). Eventually, the legalization of gay marriage will be federalized to avoid this legal gray area quagmire of state constitutional amendments, which does not work, and for many gay and lesbian couples, I'm not sure if the author is correct in saying that this isn't an equal rights issue: granting certain rights to one part of the population while denying them to others is fundamentally unequal. Maybe a better analogy than marijuana/tobacco (which I think is not quite right in this case) would have been segregated schooling.

Anyhow, it may take 10 years or it may take 30 years or 100 years, but from any perspective, it's hard to imagine a world a century from now where gay couples are not allowed to get married. So with all that we are facing today, politically, economically, socially, religiously, and so forth, I think that there's a pretty strong argument that the human and financial costs of fighting this fight far outweigh the benefits, especially when compared to so many other issues that could benefit all of us, irregardless of our religion or sexual orientation.

11/22/2008 9:35 AM

#26: Paul North

To The Baron:

You got it wrong again. It is self-evident that this is a civil rights issue under the definition of "civil rights" that you rightly use yourself.

We hold it as self-evident that everybody has the right to marry. I think we can agree on that.

What if society decided that everybody can marry, but only those with the same hair color. That would mean that a blond person could not marry person with brown hair. Would that be right? Would that be just? Would that be a truly "equal right"?

It is a civil right that a person of legal age can marry any person that is also of legal age, why do we impose exceptions. Such as that people with white skin cannot marry people with black skin. We realized that that was morally wrong.

So how about the other exceptions? Like, you can marry anybody but not if the person you love and you want to share your life with happens to be of the same gender.

Is your position morally tenable? I think the answer is obvious.
12/1/2008 5:59 PM

#27: CSM

I appreciate your eloquence and fair-mindedness in your argument.

However, your reasoning is inadequate.

the big elephant in the room that no one is discussing is that gays *do* have the right to form a legally recognized domestic partnership in California--that's been legal since 2005. So the usage of "civil rights" in regard to California gay couples is even more curious, given that their rights are the same now as they were two weeks ago.


Domestic Partnerships only provide a fraction of the legal benefits that a standard marriage gives. Even the word, "Domestic Partnership", is an unpleasant and ambiguous term. It sounds like two people who clean houses together. The basis for the founding of the Domestic Partnership was on the "Separate but Equal" principle.

"Sure your partnership will be recognized by the government, but we don't feel comfortable with the word 'Marriage'... we'll call it something else and we promise it will be the exact same thing!"

sounds a lot like,

"Sure you can get an education, but we don't feel comfortable with you in our schools... we'll use this old warehouse in the inner-city ghetto and we promise it will be the exact same thing!"

get it?
12/2/2008 7:42 PM

#28: Mie

You used the words 'love' 'commitment' 'caretaking' as criteria for marriage. In that case, I'm disappointed to your ignorance on what it really means to be gay.

It isn't just about physical attraction, physical intimacy. It's about emotional intimacy and satisfaction as well. Then, it's also very ignorant to say that the only reason a man would leave his wife is because of physical appearance. That isn't the case; perhaps he didn't feel connected to her anymore, and got fed up of them being little more than strangers bunking together in the same house?

Gay and lesbian couples feel more than just physical attraction; they feel every single same emotion a straight couple would while in love. The only difference is the genders involved.

Therefore, no, a "traditional" marriage to a man would NOT help to serve a lesbian woman, because she wouldn't be able to 'love' that man. Love is more than physical attraction, it's emotional and personal as well, and if she wouldn't be able to be emotionally intimate with him, then she would not truly be able to love him.

Unless, of course, you are assuming that all straight marriages do not require the deeper emotional aspects of 'love.' But, if that were the case, shouldn't they be ones ashamed here?

Or does the heart no longer outweigh physical attractions and appearances when it comes to love?
12/9/2008 7:25 PM

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